Ah, no, the love that kills, indeed,
Dispatches at a blow.”
“Jess is your wife!” repeated Queenie, in a voice so hollow and deathlike that it might have come from the tomb.
John Dinsmore bowed his head in assent, and as he did so, his companion detected a shadow of bitterness in his eyes, and a whitening of his face.
“What to you seems so strange can be explained in a very few words, if you care to hear that explanation,” he said, slowly.
Queenie bowed her head eagerly. Like him, words seemed to fail her. She sank into the nearest chair, pointing to one opposite her, but he declined the proffered seat, remarking that, “with her permission, he would prefer standing.”
For some moments he stood leaning against the marble mantel ere he could control himself sufficiently to tell his story.
Then he began almost abruptly:
“When you knew me at Newport, I told you that I was simply John Dinsmore, Author, Bohemian. I did not add that I was the last of kin of a wealthy uncle who had always told me that I should be his heir, for I despise men who live in expectancy of falling into dead men’s shoes, and getting the good out of fortunes which other men have toiled for. I depended upon myself and my own achievements for getting along in the world.
“Well, to make a long narrative brief, scarcely two days had passed after you and I had parted that night on the sands, ere the intelligence was brought to me that my uncle had just died abroad, and that I was his heir. But there was a condition to it, however, in the shape of a codicil, declaring, that in order to inherit this fortune, I was to become the husband of a maiden whom he had selected for me, to wit: a young girl named Jess, who lived on his plantation, Blackheath Hall, down in Louisiana. The will also added, should I fail to do this, the girl, Jess, like myself, would be disinherited.”